Daily Caller Chief: Staff Cannot Criticize Fox News

In a new video, Daily Caller chief Tucker Carlson admitted that his website bans criticism of Fox News.

"We are the publication — and I run it — that spiked a column critical of Fox News," Carlson said in an interview with the Real Clear Politics show "Changing Lanes."

Politico reported that in the interview, Carlson, who also hosts the weekend edition of the Fox News show "Fox & Friends," said his website has two key rules.

One, he said, is that "you can't criticize the families of the people who work here, and you can't go after Fox, only for one reason, and it's not because they're conservative or we agree with them. ... nothing like that. It's because I work there; I'm an anchor on Fox."

The column in question was written by blogger Mickey Kaus, a liberal who is sharply critical of illegal immigration and amnesty proposals and had been a regular contributor to the Daily Caller. In the column in question, entitled "Fox Makes it Easy for Amnesty," Kaus argued that Fox was deliberately playing down the immigration issue because of the bias of its owner, Rupert Murdoch.

Carlson pulled the column, and Kaus resigned from the Daily Caller in protest.

Carlson told Real Clear Politics that several of his employees asked if his Fox News link is in conflict with position overseeing the Daily Caller. "And I said 'yes, it's a conflict for sure,'" Carlson recounted.

It is "a conflicted situation, but I don't know what to do about it," he said.

"I have seen many conflicts where my editor was not direct with me about it where the piece would get massaged or edited, or we're just gonna hold this for a while and it turns out late I had criticized some personal friend of the owner but no one was ever direct with them about it. I'm direct about it," Carlson said. "I give total editorial freedom to my staff, total, except for those two things."

Carlson's explanation for spiking Kaus' column over his criticism of Fox drew a scornful response from Washington Post media blogger Eric Wemple, who attacked the D.C. editor's statement that he had been upfront about the website's stance toward the network.

Carlson, Wemple said, was "upfront" about what happened "once the policy is exposed by a former contract writer. But an additional level of transparency could be achieved by attaching a tag line to Daily Caller coverage of Fox News. Something like this: The Daily Caller publishes only puff pieces on Fox News."